Painting Within The Lines!

Painting your carving can make or break its appearance.  It is so easy to ruin a decent carving with a not so decent paint job.
There are lots of tips and techniques that can help ensure a good paint on a carving.  For many of us that are older and have poorer eye sight coupled with hands that are not too steady painting can be a problem.  When you carve a smaller item the problem becomes worse.  

Here's a TIP when carving items that have a hat, like Snowmen.

I find it increasingly more difficult to paint the hat (black) without having the black get into the white of the snowman's head.

This example of my poor painting is only good if the snowman has black hair sticking out from under his hat.

There's two ways to prevent this problem, which is the result of shaky hands and poor eye sight.

First, if the piece is already carved, you can carefully cut the hat from the head with the scroll saw.  Paint the hat and the snowman's head separately; and glue the hat back in place.

Or you can carve the hat and snowman separately, then when painted, glue them together.